I wanted something fun and "summery" for my shop windows and also wanted to incorporate product I sold....so why not Pinwheels!
I sell the paper, straws & brads in my shop and I have the tools to make them, so why not?
Then I realized, I should walk you through how to do these yourself! So below are my step by step instructions on how to make your own pinwheels at home. It's a great little easy project to do with younger kids, just make sure YOU do the cutting and "hole-poking" so as not to have any injuries to little fingers!
What you'll need:
A few square sheets of paper, preferably colored or 2 sided so your pinwheels are colorful on both sides.
Colorful straws-paper are preferable but plastic ones will work as well.
3/4" long brads
An awl or a sharp pointed object to push hole through paper and straw.
Scissors and a hole punch. 1/8" hole punch is preferable so your brad won't slip through the hole. If you go with 1/4" hole punch make sure your brad head is slightly bigger.
First, fold your square piece of paper into a triangle.
Then fold the triangle over to create a smaller triangle.
Open triangle and use scissors to cut along the interior fold starting at the point, cut approximately 2/3 of the way in.
Unfold, then re-fold going the opposite direction and cut along the other folded inside edge, again, starting at outer point, cutting 2/3 of the way in.
Open the sheet back up and use your punch to punch a hole in every other corner as shown in sample above.
Now, use your awl or sharp pointed tool to slowly punch a hole into the center, making sure not to make it too large a hole.
Using your awl, slowly pierce the straw going from one side to the other until you have a nice clean hole. Do this approximately 3/4" from one end.
After doing so, set the straw and one brad to the side so they're both handy once you've folded your paper.
Fold the corner holes toward the center hole, working your way counter-clockwise, until all 4 corners are lined up to center hole. While holding these down, grab your brad.
Push the brad through the holes in the center, and hold the tines of the brad from the back.
Then grab your pre-hole-driven straw.
Then thread the brad through to the back of the straw and pull tines of brad down, pulling one tine down toward the top of the straw and the other down toward the bottom of the straw.
And VOILA!! You now have a pinwheel!
Need some brads or some fun paper or colorful straws to complete this project?
Stop on by the shop and Betsy can set you up!
Stay tuned....we're going to try to post something interesting to the blog as often as we can!
Feel free to leave comments or suggestions. We'd love to hear from you!